


Ce Quiyahuitl - Three Crossroads

by Arithanas



Category: Mexican Religion and Lore
Genre: Childbirth, Gen, I can't help it, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, Old Gods, Old Traditions, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: It is 1 Rain and Cihuacóatl and her cihuateteo descend to the Earth.





	Ce Quiyahuitl - Three Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thirteenie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thirteenie/gifts).



The sound of the shells sewn to the women's skirts and the rhythmic banging of the chimalli and atlatl with each warrior's step surrounded Huitzilopochtli. The men struggled to keep their eyes trained on their master's hummingbird helmet as he stepped over the brink of the horizon. The women averted their eyes. They all bowed as the last of his radiance vanished from the Earth. The daily struggle ended again.

The warriors, all feathers, shields, and weapons, marched behind their lord to the house of the Sun. The women let them go, feeling the skin of their faces tightening and their hair rising in a whirlwind.

Their duty was over and it was 1 Rain. Cihuatlampa must wait for them.

Quilaztli raised her head full of green-blue feathers and turned around violently. She was running, almost flying toward the navel of the world where women were fighting the battle that never ends.

The skull-like faces of the cihuateteo followed the young, eager lady. The cihuateteo's hands - hard like claws - tore the red shirts from their backs, exposing their firm breast and the tragically taut belly where the snakes they wear like belts twisted and turned. They wailed their frustrated motherhoods and followed their lady in chaotic droves.

Quilaztli smiled. Her skirt studded with shells flapped against her legs. Her hands touched the red shirt, feeling hunger.

The first crossroad filled her heart before it filled her belly. The offering at the crossroad told her the sons of the fifth sun had not forgotten yet the gods that sustain their lives.

The cihuateteo flocked around her, screaming the wondrous cacophony of their collective loss. A new voice joined them, and Quilaztli turned around to caress the fresh face of the fallen warrior. Her touch drained the bronze from the young one brave enough to tear a soul from the gods.

"It was a boy," the newest one mumbled through tears and sobs. "He tore me up in his hurry to live."

"You did well," Quilaztli said, tying a snake around the young woman’s flat belly. "You should be proud."

The young one extended her empty arms in wordless complaint. She had nothing to show for her bloody battle. A wailing cry erupted from her chest. The wind carried the loneliest sound to the far corners of the world.

Quilaztli started to move, knowing well that words wouldn't bring the young one any solace.

By the next crossroads, the young one had already forgotten the one she brought to the world. Her eyes were filled with hunger, with longing for something that could never be. There was no offering and no statue. The cihuateteo, howling with rage, combed the crossroads, looking for a child, but the crossroad was glowing with many colors, the road had many children in small moving houses.  The cihuateteo couldn't get any baby to burden their empty arms.

A tall beehive stood in the next crossroad. The battle was fought there, a dozen of warriors roared inside, and the cihuateteo followed Quilaztli towards them, like a rush of cold, sibilant wind.   

The world had changed with each turn of the count of the days. Instead of rushing to the sweathouse, women rushed now to these beehives. Many of them delivered the fruit of their battle into the hands of men who didn't know where the afterbirth should be buried. There were no words of gratitude to the 13th heaven.

There was still a big show of deference for the bravest warriors, so not everything was lost.

Quilaztli peeked out into a cold room where a woman was fighting the heavens without a help from the earth. The cihuateteo surrounded Quilaztli, waiting for another one to make their numbers bigger. Their wails were both a warning and an invitation, but Quilaztli didn't let her hopes rise. The black and red face of the midwife informed her of Yoaltícitl's hand at play.

"Oh, my lady... Oh, mighty lady..." A voice was calling Quilaztli from inside the cold room. An old woman, pleading and waiting, was sitting in a corner. She even spoke the old language with the old good manners. "Oh, the mighty lady that came from the place where the sun sets, I know you hunger, I know you love the warrior, but please spare my kid, the little girl, spare the youngest baby of my tired belly..."

The midwife turned her head and Quilaztli saw the old, wise face of Teteo Innan with her wild cotton headdress inside the young woman helping the warrior.

"This one is yours, Toci," Quilaztli whispered with affection. Her voice was the moan of a thousand mothers.

"It's yours, Cihuacóatl," the old woman said in the old language without a time and without a sun, "sooner or later she will end up in your belly too."

Quilaztli smiled because those words were true. She turned around because the night was young, because there were children being born, and because the war was never-ending.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to S. to help me make this fic presentable.


End file.
